The present invention relates generally to a garment and more particularly to a ventilated garment.
Garments, such as jackets and combined pant/jacket racing suits, are commonly used by people operating motor sport vehicles such as a motorcycle, all-terrain vehicle or snowmobile. Such jackets and suits commonly employ an outer shell covering the complete torso and arms of the person, and an inner insulative liner which can be removed for warm weather use. For example, reference should be made to U.S. Pat. No. 6,263,510 entitled “Ventilating Garment” which issued to Bay et al. on Jul. 24, 2001. This patent is incorporated by reference herein.
Another conventional motorcycle jacket employed a leather torso have perforations on the shoulder, chest, back and lower torso regions. It also had solid and non-perforated sleeves sewn to the torso. A non-perforated and wind resistant vest was optionally provided to externally cover the perforated torso of the jacket but could be removed to allow air entry through the torso holes. A first vertical zipper was provided for the front of the jacket torso and a second front vertical zipper was provided for the vest. This conventional jacket, however, suffered from the disadvantages of allowing undesired air flow through the sleeve-to-torso openings between the vest and jacket interface, ultraviolet light penetrating through the perforated shoulders of the torso when the vest was removed thereby leading to sunburn of the wearer, crash protection not being provided at the shoulders of the jacket when the vest was removed, and the two-piece appearance of the vest and jacket being unattractive.
U.S. Patent Publication No. 2005/0235392 entitled “Hybrid Ventilated Garment,” which was invented by M. Bay and is incorporated by reference herein, discloses a significant improvement in garment venting. Nevertheless, there is further room for improvement in venting while providing different aesthetic appearances.